Once again, the Pope shows both insensitivity and lack of respect for historical facts regarding Orthodox.
Orthodoc
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Subject: SERBIAN ORTHODOX BISHOP SHOCKED AND DISAPPOINTED
Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren
Kosovo and Metohija
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Glas Javnosti Daily, Belgrade
03 June 2003
Serbian text at:
http://www.glas-javnosti.co.yu/danas/sr ... 0301.shtml
Why Serbian Patriarch Pavle will not welcome the head of the Roman Catholic Church to Republika Srpska
Mass at massacre site, amnesty for crimes
Foreign Minister Svilanovic proposed that Patriarch Pavle welcome the Pope in Banja Luka; the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church refused. Mass at the massacre site of Petricevac, where Ustashe* slaughtered 2,730 Serbs, among them 500 children. Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church: a provocation
by PETAR PASIC
(PHOTO: Franciscan Fr. Filipovic, known as "Brother Satan", a commander of the Concentration camp Jasenovac and a brother of the monastery at which Pope John Paul II would serve mass on June 22)
The scheduled visit of the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, to Republika Srpska and Banja Luka has stirred up strong passions both in Republika Srpska and in Serbia. Serbs on both sides of the Drina River are especially unhappy with the announcement that the Pope will serve mass at a massacre site near Banja Luka. According to the itinerary, the head of the Roman Catholic Church will serve in the Franciscan monastery Petricevac, where Ustashe [World War II Croatian Fascists] performed genocide against the Serbs, slaughtering 2,730 people, 500 of whom were children.
According to announcements, the Pope's visit to this part of Republika Srpska is expected to be glamorous. His trip will cost approximately five million euros; new grass lawns will be built for the "popemobile"; and several hundred thousand Catholic believers are expected to welcome the Holy Father. Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church have indicated that it is their wish that the Pope's host be the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude the Serbian Patriarch Kyr Pavle.
"Glas" has learned, however, that the Patriarch will not welcome the Pope on June 22.
"Prior to the conclusion of the session of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church from May 13 to May 24, Serbia and Montenegro foreign minister Goran Svilanovic visited the Patriarchate and the Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church. At that time Svilanovic proposed to the Patriarch that host the Pope's visit; however, the Patriarch rejected this, most probably due to the location where the Pope will serve mass," one of the bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church and member of the Holy Synod told "Glas".
This senior church officials emphasized that under the circumstances it is not customary for the head of the Roman Catholic Church to be welcomed by a senior delegation of the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church and that this would probably be done by Bishop Jefrem of Banja Luka, who, it appears, has not yet received an official invitation.
Dr. Milan Bulajic, the president of the Genocide Investigation Fund, expressed his bitterness and disbelief that no one has officially condemned the Pope's intent to serve mass at the massacre site.
"From Petricevac Monastery the Ustashe, led by Franciscan parish priest Vjekoslav (Tomislav) Filipovic, set out on a massacre of the Serb population. In just ten hours, on February 6, 1942, in the villages of Drakulic, Motike and Sargovic, they slaughtered no less than 2,730 Serbs, 500 of whom were children. The genocide was committed by the Second Corporal Battle Unit of Ustashe leader Ante Pavelic, headed by Ueberlieutenant Josip Mislov and Captain Nikola Zelic, who were led by the priest Filipovic," Dr. Bulajic told "Glas".
One of the greatest pogroms against innocent Serb civilians began at dawn with the takeover of the Rakovac mine, where 37 workers were killed with a pickaxe. The worst scene of the monstrous crime occurred at the school, where 60 children were slaughtered before the eyes of their teacher, who lost her mind as a result.
Ante Pavelic, the chief of the USTASHE Nazi regime in Croatia, with the Roman Catholic Episcopate
and the recently beatified Card. Aloisius Stepinac (right from Pavelic) Vatican has never condemned Ustashe movement
and said truth about open involvement of the RCatholic clergy in its ranks
According to "MAGNUM CRIMEN" ("The Great Crime") of author Viktor Novak, who described bestial acts of the Ustashe against the Serbs during World War II, a brother of the Petricevac Monastery, Tomislav Filipovic, entered the classroom during class with 12 Ustashe, imitating Jesus Christ and his twelve apostles. He ordered teacher Dobrila Martinovic to bring a Serb child to the front of the class.
Suspecting nothing, the teacher called Radojka Glamocanin, a pretty and neat child, the daughter of Djuro Glamocanin, a respected citizen of Drakulic then imprisoned in Germany. The brother gently received the child, lifted her to the lectern and then slowly began to slit her throat in front of the other children, the teacher and the Ustashe. Panic broke out; the horrified children screamed and jumped. The brother calmly and in Jesuit-like, dignified fashion addressed the Ustashe: "Ustashe, by this in the name of God I baptize these degenerates and you should follow my example. I am the first to accept all sin onto my soul; I will confess you and absolve you of all sin."
The priest then ordered the teacher to take all the Serb children into the schoolyard. He issued the same order to teacher Mara Tunjic in another classroom. In the schoolyard, on the trodden snow, he placed the 12 Ustashe in a circle and then ordered the children to run next to them. As each child passed, an Ustashe would gouge out an eye and push it into the child's slit belly; he would cut off an ear from a second, the nose from a third, a finger from a fourth, the cheeks from a fifth... And so on until all the children collapsed. Then the Ustashe finished them off in the snow. Priest Filipovic later became the administrator of the Jasenovac concentration camp and earned the nickname "Brother Satan".
Did the long announced visit of the head of the Roman Catholic Church to Bosnia and Herzegovina have to begin with mass on a terrible Serb massacre site is the question which will surely remain in the focus of public attention in coming days.
Blessing of crime site
"The Pope has visited Croatia twice and Jasenovac not once. He has never addressed an apology to the victims of the genocide in which representatives of the Catholic Church participated. Now he is planning to hold Holy Mass at a Serb massacre site and to beatify a layman, Ivan Merc, who founded the Catholic youth movement from which Ustashe youth later sprang," emphasized Bulajic, adding: "Isn't the Pope blessing a crime site and amnestying criminals by this act?"
Church opposed
The bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church consider the decision to have the Pope serve mass in Petricevac as a provocation, a member of the Holy Synod told "Glas". "The bishops are divided on the issue of whether to meet with the Pope, even though the dominant view is that talks are certainly necessary. However, with respect to the mass at Petricevac, all the bishops were opposed," said the senior church official. "Glas" learned that the bishops spoke about "acquainting the Pope with crimes against Serbs committed in this region during World War II."
Marovic visits the Pope
VATICAN (Beta) - Serbia and Montenegro president Svetozar Marovic expressed the hope yesterday that intensive work could be done in the next year on a visit by Pope John Paul II to the state union.
After talks with the Pope and the state secretary of the Holy See, Cardinal Angelo Sodana, Marovic said that the possibility of a papal visit to Serbia and Montenegro was discussed. He added that, as head of the state union, he could invite the Pope to visit Serbia and Montenegro but that he wants the visit to occur at a moment when the conditions are right in the view of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Pope expressed his support for peace and stability in Serbia and Montenegro and Southeastern Europe. The head of the Roman Catholic Church welcomed the activities of the Serbia and Montenegro government toward affirmation of dialogue and compromise.
Translated by www.serbian-translation.com (June 4, 2003)
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*Ustashe - Croatian NAZI troops during the Second World War. Parallel of German SS units.
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Related Links (Ustashe movement, Jasenovac camp, Involvement of the RCatholic clergy)
Museum of Holocaust (Washington D.C) - HOLOCAUST ERA IN CROATIA - JASENOVAC 1941-1945
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/jasenovac/
Jasenovac - Pavelic Papers
An independent project researching the history of the Ustashe Movement
http://www.pavelicpapers.com/documents/jasenovac/
Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic "BROTHER SATAN"
http://www.pavelicpapers.com/documents/ ... index.html
Franciscan priest and enthusiastic commandant at Jasenovac. Known to inmates as Fra Sotona (Brother Devil) for his appetite for cruelty and blood. Never excommunicated from the order, and continued to preach sermons and take confession while he took part in monstrous cruelty against inmates at Jasenovac. Captured by Communists after the war, summarily tried and hanged in his friar's robes.
Jasenovac Survivor on Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic - Excerpt
http://www.pavelicpapers.com/documents/ ... m0001.html
A powerful passage from an interview with Jasenovac survivor Dr. Nikola Nikolic, on concentration camp commandant and priest Fra Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic.
Miroslav Filipovic Majstorovic (WIKIPEDIA)
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_ ... ajstorovic
"Miroslav Filipovic-Majstorovic (died 1946), was a former Franciscan friar from the monastery of Petricevac, who commanded the Jasenovac concentration camp in Yugoslavia during World War II. A member of the Croatian ultra-nationalist Ustase, he continued in his role as a member of a religious order, even while commanding the camp, earning him the epithet Fra Sotona ("Brother Devil") among the inmates.
A Croatian nationalist and a fascist, he combined religion with his political ideology. In one instance, in a raid on a Serb Orthodox village in 1942, he slashed the throat of a child and exclaimed: "Ustasha, this is the way in which I baptise these fatherless kids in the name of God. You should just follow my example. Let this thing be on my soul, but I am going to give you my forgiveness and the forgiveness of the Church for your acts." At his trial for war crimes, he later admitted to personally killing at least one hundred people, including children, per day in the camp.
After the war, Filipovic-Majstorovic was tried and tried and sentenced to death. He was hanged wearing the friar's robes he often wore in the camp, when giving confession and murdering prisoners."
THE CASE OF ARCHBISHOP STEPINAC - PATRON SAINT OF GENOCIDE
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~velid/cf/cs/psg1.html
The Role of Stepinac - Mass Conversions and Genocide
Cardinal Stepinac and his clerics at one of the
Nazi ceremonies
The Holocaust Revealed - What is Vatican Hiding
http://www.holocaustrevealed.org/_domai ... Hiding.htm
Jasenovac concentration camp
http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/kosta/ ... INDEX.html
The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, by Vladimir Dedijer
http://www.ahriman.com/en/dedijer.htm
From the editor's preface:
Man, that is straight up evil!